For surfactants and surface treatment agents with fluorochemical chains longer perfluoroalkyl chains contain a higher percentage of fluorine at a given concentration and provide better performance. However, fluorinated materials are more expensive. Reduction of the fluorine content with delivery of the same or higher performance is therefore desirable. Reducing the fluorine content would reduce the cost, but it is necessary to maintain product performance.
EP 0,144,844 B1 discloses a fluoroalkyl acid amide derived from acylation of a diamine with one equivalent of a fluorinated hydrocarbon acid or fluorinated oxyhydrocarbon acid radical as an intermediate in the preparation of a surfactant.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,035,841 discloses a bis-fluoroalkyl acid amide derived from acylation of a oxyalkylene diamine with a perfluorinated hydrocarbon acid radical.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,621,059 discloses amides derived from hexafluoropropylene oxide polymer acids and monoamine terminated polyalkylene oxide that function as surfactants and emulsifying agents.
It is desirable to improve surfactant or surface treating agent performance and to increase the fluorine efficiency, i.e., boost the efficiency or performance of the surfactants or treating agents so a lower proportion of the expensive fluorine component is required to achieve desired levels of performance, or to have better performance using the same level of fluorine. It is also desirable to have available surfactants based on a variety of fluorocarbon feed-stocks.